Archive for the ‘Environment’ Category

The Genius of Calm

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

I watched the President as he has handled BP and the current crisis with confusion. I couldn’t understand his lack of anger. Why his demeanor was so calm, why he merely pointed out BP’s responsibility instead of calling for heads on a pike.

I watched his address from the White House. I was dumbfounded.  How could our great leader sit there and talk as if describing a Sunday afternoon picnic while I was almost sick with anger?  Slowly my anger began to turn to this man who refused to be as angry as I was. Who had the nerve not to demand the heads of BP’s top executives. I went to bed disappointed and angry at the man I had expected to be my voice.

The next afternoon I saw the news. BP agreed to set up a 20 billion dollar fund just as a start. Not only that, they agreed to a 100 million dollar fund to help the laid off oil workers due to the drilling moratorium!

Suddenly I understood.

My President hadn’t let me down. The man I expected to be my voice instead chose to be my guardian.

To understand the genius of his tactics you have to realize that by our own regulations, BP was limited to only 75 million in damages. Sure they were saying they would pay all costs but that could have stopped at anytime and there wasn’t much we could do about it.

Had the President set out like a head hunter out for BP blood, you can bet they would have turned it over to their legal department and it would have been many years before anyone saw a dime.

Barrack Obama had the forethought to stay calm; to firmly place responsibility and liability on BP’s shoulders while keeping care not to crucify BP.

You can bet in private BP saw a different face. I could just see our President informing BP that if they didn’t match action with words, things could get much worse for them. That not only would he publicly make them the face of evil incarnate, he would call for criminal charges for their top executives.

Instant cooperation!

I  should have known better than to lose faith. I have seen his calm genius before and I am sure we will see it again.

Paul

Posted in Economics, Environment, Politics | Comments Off

Global protest planned over BP’s handling of Gulf Oil Disaster

Saturday, June 12th, 2010

Will it make a difference?
Check out CNN’s informative article on the protest.

Posted in Environment, Politics, Social Issues | Comments Off

My Worries About The Gulf Coast Oil Leak Disaster

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

I am worried.

Not about the Gulf coast oil leak. It will stop. Sooner or later they will get this thing plugged or it will simply run out of oil, but it will stop.

Not about the clean up. It will take time and whether BP or the government or volunteers takes care of it, it will get cleaned.

Nor am I worried about the Gulf recovering. That also will happen. It may take many years, and may in the end be different than it once was but it will recover.

What I am worried about is that we will not learn our lesson. That the rhetoric about the need for jobs and the need of the meager oil reserves that offshore drilling has the potential to tap, will allow things to continue with relatively minor changes.

I already hear that they may allow new permits for shallow water drilling. Didn’t anyone notice that the last couple of oil rig accidents were in shallow waters? And that like this disaster they also took months to stop the flow of oil?

Just because it is 500 ft or less doesn’t mean that the oil companies are any more prepared to deal with an accident.

This accident should be Obama’s rallying cry, instead of allowing the opposition to turn this against him. He needs to use this opportunity to gain support for his green energy agenda. He needs to use this like Kennedy use Sputnik to spur our space program. He needs to use this to call on all Americans to cut our fossil fuel use to a trickle by the end of the decade. But more immediately he must call for a complete offshore drilling moratorium.

If the powers that be insist we need this oil too badly not to drill, a decent compromise would be to allow offshore drilling only when;

  • 1. All available failsafes are in place (including a sonically activated disconnect) and are regularly checked and certified to be in working order.
  • 2. That all liability limits are lifted.
  • 3. They demonstrate that even if all their failsafes fail, they can stop the flow of oil within 24 hours (this can be done by requiring a relief well to be drilled simultaneously to the main well).
  • 4. A strong government agency is created to do regular inspections, and also have the power to instantly shut down and fine any operation failing to meet safety protocols.

Only when all these criteria are met should we allow offshore drilling to continue.

Posted in Environment, Politics | Comments Off

BP’s Latest Attempt at Capping the Gulf Oil Leak is a Scam

Monday, June 7th, 2010

I don’t know about the rest of America but I can’t get enough of watching the live feeds from BP.

There is something about watching all theses underwater robots I find fascinating.

But watching has left me with a very bad taste in my mouth for BP’s efforts.

I watched as the diamond saw robot began to do its job.  The hope was to get a smooth cut so that their cap could fit snugly capturing the flow of oil.  After a bit of cutting the saw got into a bind (stuck) and I watched patiently until they got it unstuck and brought it to the surface for repair.

As a person fairly knowledgeable about how saws work, I know there are two causes for a saw getting in a bind. 1. The weight of the object you are cutting is leaning into your cut (pinching your saw) or 2. You are applying too much pressure. Both problems are easily fixed by either adjusting the position of your cut, your feed rate (pressure), or both.

So I was really surprised when they abandoned the saw cut with the diamond saw after only one attempt and decided to go with the brute force method of using a pair of sears. By their own admission this would leave a jagged edge on the riser pipe making for a poor seal.

If a smooth surface is the goal I don’t understand why they just didn’t unbolt the flange?

I still however, figured they could still get a good enough seal if they made the cap correctly.  I am no engineer but I would have thought that the inside of the cap would have been a rubber funnel shape just big enough so it sealed around the outside edge of the pipe flange with some kind of clamping mechanism to apply pressure and to hold it securely.

As I watched the robots guide it into place, it looked as I thought it would. There was even some fin shapes at the bottom that appeared to be clamps of some sort.

Once in place I watched as the oil seemed to flow out from under this thing freely. I was flabbergasted when I realized there were no clamps. That the fins were just that, fins!  I could even see the cap sway from the force of the oil coming from beneath it.

Then it dawned on me. Of course! It is so simple.

They don’t need to have a great seal. All they have to do is start pumping out the oil at the surface as fast (or close to) as it is exiting the hole at the ocean bottom and the oil would be under little or no pressure at the cap.  If it leaked at all it would be minimal.

Once again I was shocked as I listened to the descriptions of relief valves on the caps and chokes at the surface. I realized in despair that they used a soft hose instead of solid piping to connect the cap to the surface (the solid piping seemed a no brainer to me), that the plan was to let the oil come to the surface under its own pressure. Of course with this scheme, anything but an absolutely perfect seal would leak horrendously.

I was dumbfounded at this realization. How could teams of BP’s top engineers possibly come up with such a lame doomed to fail scheme? They had to know that this would only capture a very small percentage of the oil.  A child sucking on a soda straw would come up with a better plan.

It was then that one of my last remaining brain cells fired. We were duped.

I believe that BP wants to oil to stop. But they can’t do that so the only remaining option is the capture the oil. One would think that would be the best option for BP. Capture all the oil, collect the revenues.

BP has one tiny little problem. If they capture it all there will be an indisputable measure as to how much oil has spilled and that is a figure BP would rather not get out.

You see they not only have to pay royalties based on how much is spilled but they may also be fined as much as $4300.00 a barrel. So it is in their best interest to keep people guessing at the amount.

With the configuration they have now they can claim that whatever amount they capture is the “vast majority” of the oil when in actuality it is only a small fraction.

There will be those who will dispute the numbers but without definitive proof BP has the upper hand and they know it.

We are being scammed yet once again.

Update:

I just learned on Keith Olbermann’s Countdown that BP has announced plans to replace the cap with a bigger better fitting version next month. This new cap will be equipped with clamps to hold it firmly in place (sound familiar?).

I have to wonder why they didn’t use this cap in the first place and why take a month to replace it.

Could it be that BP never wanted the cap to fit well? That after seeing the oil still gushing,  pressure was exerted to do better? Could it be that they are putting off replacing the cap as long as possible hoping the flow rate will slow?

Posted in Environment, Legal, Scams, Science | Comments Off